The article covers the issue of the functioning of one of the advisory bodies of central governmental administration, i.e. the Council for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Affairs, which is associated with the President of the National Atomism Agency (PAA), the chief nuclear supervision body in Poland, which is the competent authority in nuclear safety and radiation protection affairs, as defined in the Atomic Law (Prawo atomowe). The article presents the objectives of the functioning of the Council as an advisory body to the nuclear supervision authority on the basis of international and European law and the views of the nuclear energy law doctrine. In relation to the Council, an important role is played by soft law acts, especially the so-called IAEA safety standards. Despite the fact that they are not legally binding, they constitute a valuable and extensive collection of recommendations supporting regional and national legislative activity. The purpose of this study is also a critical analysis of the amendment to the Atomic Law from 2016 in the section relating to changes made to the way of shaping the Council’s make-up. They caused the loss of one of the Council’s most important attributes, i.e. independence in the decision-making process and they deprived the President of the PAA (decision-making body) of influence on shaping its make-up. The changes introduced should be interpreted as an unequivocal negation of the ratio legis of appointing the Council and a significant step backwards in relation to the existing practice and legislative trends in recent years. The author postulates restoring the previous legal solutions as the ones that will allow the Council, the advisory body, to fulfil its function in the right way, really supporting the decision-making authority for which it works.

The article analyses known facts concerning the corruption of deputies in Ukraine. The negative influence of various oligarchs on legislative activity is shown in it. It was established that the manifestations of corruption in legislative activity are significantly easier due to its imperfection and lack of proper regulations.
The principle of the inevitability of punishment as regards the deputies is formal. Several recommendations have been formulated based on the research in order to improve legislative measures.
Numerous corruption-related facts concerning the deputies indicate significant deformations of legislative activity for the purpose of illegal enrichment. It was shown in the paper that the improvement of the legislative process has not been implemented properly.
There is every reason to claim that the purpose of individual deputies’ legislative activity is to form unclear relations between business and the government on special conditions to which citizens do not have any access. Some of the deputies use those privileges not for the good of society, but for personal enrichment.
It is noted that the inevitability of the punishment of deputies for the crime of corruption is rather pretended. Activities which are meant to fight corruption in that category of higher national officials are being implemented quite slowly.
An adoption of a number of acts improving legislative actions the purpose of which is to fight corruption among deputies is proposed. The elimination of illegal relations between the government and business is a priority.

These standards were introduced at four international organizations and supranational associations: 1) the European Union; 2) the Council of Europe; 3) the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; 4) the Commonwealth of Independent States. The article states that the key reason for the introduction of standards for the regulation of lobbying at the international level was considerable corruption in the adoption of legal acts. It is concluded that latent and unregulated lobbying can seriously undermine public confidence in the institution of government, especially in the countries of the so-called “new democracy”. International regulation of lobbying takes the form of resolutions, procedural rules, guidelines, recommendations and model legislation. Notably, the first steps towards international regulation of lobbying were taken by the institutions of the European Union. Today EU standards for the regulation of lobbying is based on a series of articles set out in the EU-founding treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. EU standards for the regulation of lobbying influence not only the EU Member States, but it also extends to EU Partner Countries. Significant steps in the implementation of international standards for the regulation of lobbying are being constantly carried out by the Council of Europe. The establishment of CE standards for the regulation of lobbying is reflected in the activity of statutory bodies of the Council of Europe and its semi-autonomous bodies. In recent years a lot of work on the strengthening of international standards for lobbying regulation has been done by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. To help address the concerns with transparency and integrity in lobbying, the OECD Member Countries adopted in 2010 a Recommendation on Principles for Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying as guidance to decision-makers on how to promote good governance in lobbying. Another international organization, which began to regulate actively the practice of lobbying is the Commonwealth of Independent States. In order to intensify the work concerning legislative regulation of lobbying in the member countries of the CIS, at the XXII Plenary Session of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS member states the Resolution No. 22-16 of November 15, 2003 was adopted, which approved a model law “On regulation of lobbying activity in state authorities”.

The aim of the paper is to create an updated typology of soft law. It places soft law among mechanisms of a rather moral, sociological and political origin. This does not mean that it is completely irrelevant in legal terms, but the inclusion of the regulations of soft law in the framework of a “normative system” does not deserve to be taken into account i.a. due to the character of soft law (i.a. formulating the regulations in a general, imprecise manner, the uncertainty of introduced instruments, the lack of an obligatory force to implement them). This paper indicates the roles played by soft law in the international public law discourse. It also presents differences in their consideration on the grounds of the international law (including the Community law) as well as the internal law. Out of the whole catalogue of individual functions and tasks of soft law, special heed should be taken of the co-ordinating role of the mechanisms of soft law. Against this background, the paper makes a categorisation of the opinions of the Venice Commission in the framework of soft law. This is because they show the typical features of the mechanisms of that law: they play a binding role, relatively clarifying the international law, they are based on the undisputed authority of the creating entity. However, they are not subject to the forced implementation of them. In the conclusions of the paper, a chance, but also a fundamental threat related to the conduct of the international legal discourse on the basis of the mechanisms of soft law were indicated.

What is law and what is teaching – remains disputable. The departure point shouldbe the notio n of law, which cannot be said to exist without reference to normativity, binding power and predictability. The obstacle in teaching law is that there are several centrifugal forces resulting in disintegration of law. These are, for example: creating fake sources of law such as binding recommendations, amending laws by lower-ranking acts, which is the specialty of the EU; informally adopting the
common law doctrine of stare decisis by Continental Judges; using the interpretation of law as a fig leaf for actually amending it; demanding the disregarding of national laws by judges if they come to the conclusion that national laws are in violation of the EU law by the EU Court, even if there is no procedural framework to do so. In teaching law, a teacher should promote theories and practices conducive to the cohesion of the legal system. Teachers have to take sides in the encounter of conflicting ideas and practices in the spirit of fighting for a better law.